AN: Preseries one-shot. I made a throwaway comment in another story about the premise and promised to eventually write a story about it. I can't remember which story for the life of me, though it might be Gauntlet. Sorry I'm too lazy to check.

Janice was fabulous, as always, and very speedy, too. PLUS, I neglected to mention her for her beta work before the most recent chapter of Bewildered because I am horrifically forgetful sometimes. I am always grateful to her, even when I don't say it.

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Dean carefully balanced a gummy bear carefully on the back of his left hand and lined up his shot. Satisfied he'd be on target, he curled the thumb and middle finger of the other hand into a circle, pushing hard with his thumb. Then he released the finger to send the bear flying with impressive speed directly into the blades of the creaky, rapidly-turning ceiling fan. Upon impact, it immediately careened off to the side to splat into the wall hard enough to stick for a moment before sliding down to the floor, leaving a faint blue streak in its wake.

Dean cackled. "D'you see that one, Sammy? That's what it gets for being blue. 'S a crime against nature to make blue gummy bears."

"You're weird," Sam commented without looking up. "Gummy bears don't exist 'in nature' anyway."

Dean looked over at his little brother. A year ago, Sam would have been right next to him, launching gummy bears and laughing when they really went flying. Heck, even six months ago. But the almost-teen had begun to change, becoming simultaneously more introspective and more volatile.

He was also lying on his back on his bed with his crossed legs up against the wall, so it looked like he was sitting on the wall. It had been a favored reading position of his forever.

"I'm the weird one?" Dean asked in response, flicking a purple gummy at the fan next, disappointed when it shot straight down instead of at the wall. "Besides, everyone knows that the only right colors for gummy bears are red, yellow, white, and orange."

"And green," Sam added. He was such a stickler for details and correctness he drove Dean crazy sometimes. "I know. I've heard the speech. You're some gummy bear purist, but if it matters to you, why don't you just buy the real thing instead of those Yummy Gummy ones?"

"Cuz I can buy like four bags of these for the same price," Dean argued. Sam wasn't even looking at him and he was a little miffed that he was apparently the only one who was bored waiting for Dad to get there. He flicked the next gummy – black, seriously, what the hell? – right at Sam. It hit his book and landed on his chest.

"Then you throw half of 'em away," Sam muttered. He picked up the mutant candy and popped it into his mouth. "Hm. Good."

"Mama mia! Where did I go wrong-a with dis child?" Dean lamented in his best Italian accent.

A laugh burst out of Sam, and he looked surprised by it. Dean couldn't help but grin at the kid. "So, so weird," Sam said.

Dean tossed a (nice, normal) red bear into his mouth and contemplated if he could pester his brother into a wrestling match. So much reading just couldn't be good for you. Before he'd formulated a plan, the motel room phone rang, startling them both. Dean snagged it, noting Sam automatically rolling off the bed and getting to his feet. In the Winchesters' world, surprises were rarely good things.

"Yeah?" Dean answered, then. "Oh, Dad." Naturally, they'd called to let him know the number as soon as they'd found out. Dad had a car phone, but they were far too expensive to have more than one, so for now they made do but as they always had. His truck had blown its water pump, so he'd bought one and found a place he could install it himself, but told the boys to go on ahead in the Impala and get a room. Dean would have stayed to help, except it was the type of job that only took one person, and their room was already rented by the guy, Dennis something, who'd called them for help.

"You're in danger," Dad started talking immediately. Dean put the phone on speaker, mostly because Sam had jammed his ear against the other side of the phone earpiece in an attempt to hear. "I found a so-called Hunter messing with stuff he shouldn't a while back and dropped enough info with the police to get him locked up. He's out, and the whole case is a trap. I don't know if Dennis is in on it or not. But I know what he's got coming for you. It's a lizard man."

He said the last two words like they'd mean something to his sons, something dire. Dean mouthed 'lizard man?' to Sam, who just shrugged.

"What –" Dean started, but Dad had only paused for a quick breath.

"They're very rare, lay their eggs almost exclusively in Ore Swamp, and their babies are human sized. When they get big, they bury themselves way way down, like miles, and come out only once every couple hundred years, eat everything they can find, then bury themselves again. But he woke one up and it's going to be headed right for you two."

"Shit! We can be on the road in five," Dean said.

"No!" Dad responded immediately. "It could be close already and I don't know how big it is or how to kill it. But I have some warding for you to put up. Do it now, do it exactly as I tell you, and stay put. Answer the phone if it rings, because it will either be me checking in or Singer with more information. Write this down."

Sam shoved a notebook in front of Dean, who turned past math problems to a blank page and picked up the complimentary motel pen. Dad talked fast, but Dean was used to that. He got it down quickly and double-checked the things he wasn't sure of.

"Do we need to do it in something special, or is, like, chalk okay?" he asked.

Dad answered over the sound of the truck door closing. "Doesn't matter. Chalk, pen, whatever you have. Just put it on every wall and say the words when it's all done. I'll be there in half an hour or less."

"We'll be fine," Dean assured him. "We'll have this up in a couple minutes and be all set."

"I know. Be careful, boys." There was a pause like he wasn't quite ready to get off the line, then he hung up. It was Dad's way of saying he loved them.

Sam's eyes were wide when he looked at Dean, so Dean made sure he looked confident. "Alright, Sammy. Grab something to write with and start on that wall." He pointed to the wall they shared with the next room, since the interior wall was likely to be the safest part of the room. He nodded in approval as Sam tossed him a grease pencil and took another for himself.

None of the symbols were complicated, but there were quite a few of them, so Sam quickly made his own copy of Dean's transcription to carry with him, which meant Dean finished his two walls before Sam did. He didn't bother to check Sam's work – kid was far more of a perfectionist than Dean would ever be (unless maybe you were talking about tuning Baby…). Instead, he read over the words in his mind so he'd be ready.

As Sam started the final symbol, there was a crash outside. His eyes went wide, but he didn't stop. Dean began the activation phrases literally as Sam pulled his hand away from the wall. Halfway through, the room shook and Sam said, "Wait, Dean, stop!"

Dean did not stop. Dad had said to get the protections up as fast as possible and by the sound of things, they were out of time. Sam said something else as the last syllable fell from Dean's mouth. There was a slight pop, then a small creature stood on the middle of the room. It was a little shorter than Sam, impossibly thin and spindly, and hunched over as if its overlarge head was too heavy to hold up with its long neck. Its eyes were huge and unrelieved black, there was no visible nose, and its mouth was a line stretching halfway around its watermelon-shaped head. It was brown and every part other than the head was shriveled like someone had forgotten to water it for a decade or so. It looked extraordinarily unimpressed to find itself in the middle of their motel room.

"Um…" said Dean intelligently, pointing his gun at the thing. He was fairly sure that Dad's wards weren't intended to summon the humanoid equivalent of an uglifruit. He could infer that he'd probably done something wrong, which was likely what Sam had been trying to tell him. "What is that?"

Sam shrugged. He was holding his butterfly knife and staring at the thing as intensely as Dean was. A crash and scream outside the room literally shook the building. In response, the creature in the middle of the room tipped the top of its head back like a Pez dispenser and screamed.

Dean had heard death screams, poltergeist wails, and sat in the sixth row of a KISS concert, but he'd never heard anything like this before. It compared to the scream outside the room the same way a tsunami compared to the ripples caused by a row boat.

Dean was on his knees covering his ears before he registered it. His whole body was vibrating so hard that he could barely see Sam cowering next to him or the cracks running up the walls. Then one wall exploded in like John Madden in a beer commercial. Amid the dust and drywall was a bargain basement Godzilla. Or at least, most of it. It was so tall that its head wasn't visible until it bent down. It had the thick, scaled body and rather stumpy back legs of Godzilla, but in contrast, its front legs were so long its claws nearly grazed the ground when it was upright. When it leaned forward, it revealed a barrel chest, a head as wide as its shoulders, and a mouth worthy of a T-rex. Its teeth were dripping red blood.

The screaming thing directed its auditory attack at the much larger thing (the lizard man, Dean supposed), foolishly brave like a little skunk trying to intimidate a Cadillac so it didn't run him over. Much like that skunk, the screamer didn't stand a chance. The lizard man simply reached into the room, hooked the other with its long, curved claws, and stuffed in unceremoniously into its mouth.

The stick man wasn't done yet, however. It clung to the outside of the lizard man's mouth with all of its long limbs even while the latter tried to chew it to bits and kept shoving at it to push it farther down its gullet. It was still screaming, too, though it was blessedly muted.

It occurred to Dean that both monsters were otherwise occupied, therefore it would probably be a good time to vamoose. "C'mon, Sammy," he said and realized he could hardly hear himself. Figuring Sam couldn't hear much either, he grabbed his brother's arm and pulled him to the door. But the entire room was leaning that direction, and Dean couldn't force it open, even when Sam threw his shoulder into it too. After throwing himself at it futilely a few more times, Dean chanced a look back at Wannabezilla. It was still struggling with its meal, though a good half of it was inside its mouth now, the screaming barely audible to Dean. The lizard monster still blocked 99% of the opening it had made, now sitting on its ass still fighting to complete eating its prey. It was slowly winning the fight, then it would turn its attention to the two boys.

The only other exit was the window directly opposite the door. They'd have to run past the lizard man to get to it, and with those long limbs, it could reach almost entirely across the room. Dean calculated in his head, then shoved his gun into Sam's hand and pulled his knife. "When I say 'go,' run over the beds to the window as fast as you can and shoot the window out. Think you can get six shots off?" he hissed urgently to Sam.

Sam thought about it for a split second. "Yeah. You –"

"I'll be behind you, watching your back. I swear. Fire only six times, okay?"

Sam drew a deep breath and blew it out, then nodded to indicate he was ready. Dean shot one more look at evil Barney. Only one long-toed brown foot of the screaming thing remained outside the cavernous maw, clinging desperately to one lizard nostril. "Go!"

Sam was no slouch in the speed department and took off, firing as he went. Dean was half a step behind him, and deflected a half-hearted swipe from the wicked claws with his knife. He was counting shots. The sixth one rang out as they were both on the second bed. Perfect. Dean wrapped his arms around Sam and jumped at the shattered window, turning his body as he went so his back hit the remnants of the glass first.

They landed hard but were on their feet in a second. Claws scrabbled at the window from the inside, then the lizard man was scrambling to its feet. Sam shot his last two bullets at it, then they turned and ran for cover. There was only one direction to go, as the motel was on one side of the small, empty parking lot, a creek bounded the opposite, and the lizard man itself was blocking a third, so they sprinted for the far end of the lot and motel.

In two bounds, the lizard man was almost on top of them, using its front legs to propel itself forward. Then the boom of a shotgun echoed through the night. And another.

"Boys!" called a familiar voice. "To me!" It was Dad, firing over their heads at the monster, which was slowed by the blasts, but not much. "Get out of sight!" he ordered when they reached him, drawing a machete.

"I can help," Dean insisted, and Dad nodded.

"Sammy, hide!" he ordered and Sam, weaponless now, obeyed, running between the motel and the next building.

Dad deflected a swipe of claws with his machete, nearly going to his knees just from the glancing blow. "We gotta draw it to the front of the motel," he said, darting out of range. The lizard man's throat was bulging, a thin sound emanating from it, and Dean was grateful that its mouth was still mostly out of commission. (He was also reluctantly impressed with the stubbornness of the pez-head.) "I have a semi full of, uh, turkeys there and these things are so terrified by birds they freeze, so we should be able to cut its head off." Dad deflected yet another swipe but couldn't get anywhere close enough to actually get a hit of his own in.

"A what?" Dean was fairly sure he'd misheard that over the ringing in his ears.

A sudden backhand knocked Dean and Dad both to the ground and only Dean's lightning reflexes to block the return swing kept Dad and his head attached to each other. Its reach was too long, its movements too fast.

Dad shot it again, gaining them room to get to their feet, but then the lizard man changed trajectory so it was now blocking the way between the buildings. Worse, it hooked the outside of Dean's shirt with a claw and he went down again. He didn't even think they'd managed to hurt it yet.

Then suddenly everything was blindingly bright and the monster covered it eyes. Something was growling or grumbling hard enough to shake the ground, but Dean's ears hadn't recovered enough to tell exactly what. Dad grabbed his arm and dragged him to the side as the source of the light smashed into the corner of the motel, reducing it to rubble, and roared forward, dragging bits of the wall with it.

"It" turned out to be a semi truck. It barreled into the lizard man with a crunch that sent detritus flying and knocked out both headlights. The momentum kept pushing the monster until it went into the creek, the cab falling into the water on top of it. Dean blinked furiously at the sudden changes in light, trying to confirm that he had, indeed, seen a small figure leaping from the cab seconds before impact.

Something touched his cheek and he jumped, only just noticing that it was raining feathers.

"Dad? Dean? Are you okay?" came a voice, barely audible over the still-running engine and cacophony of terrified turkeys, some of which were running in circles or trying to hide under their own wings.

"We're fine," Dean called, almost faint with relief, which was immediately followed by a healthy helping of what the hell, Sammy?!

"We gotta kill it and get out of here," Dad called, snapping Dean out of it.

The lizard man was trapped beneath the cab but already fighting to work its way free, making choking sounds that sounded more frightened or pissed than hurt. Its arms were trapped but wouldn't be for long. Dad waded into the water and Dean climbed onto the hood of the cab so they could work at its thick neck from both directions. A turkey followed Dean and supervised from a perch atop the cab.

Finally, the head fell free and splashed into the water.

And the other creature that Dean had apparently somehow accidentally summoned, more than a little worse for the wear and missing a couple limbs, climbed out of the neck. It squeaked hoarsely at Dean and leaped into the water. He could have sworn it gave him the bird as it floated away.

"I got the duffels out of the room!" Sam called. It was lucky that they hadn't unpacked. Dean didn't think they were leaving anything behind except gummy bears and maybe a couple grease pencils. He would kind of like to hear the authorities' explanation for what had happened, but for now, they had to take the Impala and haul ass. There were already sirens in the distance.

Just another day in Winchester world.

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AN: The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp is sort of South Carolina's own personal monster, like the Michigan Dogman or the Loch Ness Monster. It's supposed to be just one creature, roughly humanoid, seven feet tall, with green scales and red eyes. I made it the baby of a much bigger creature so I could make it scarier, because why not? The scared of birds thing was all me.

The thing Dean accidentally summoned is called a drekavac. It is a creature from Slavic mythology. There are tons of different interpretations of it depending on what area you're talking about, which for me translates as, "I can do whatever I want with it! Woo-hoo!" A few things I did cull from mythology were the drekavac's scream (their name comes from the word for scream) and long, thin limbs.